Deckmbek 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



833 



them at the same time to understand the fun- 

 damental reasons of their own occupations. 

 There is less attempt to apply the teaching 

 upon the University farm than to instill a 

 desire to master the underlying principles 

 of agriculture. There is, therefore, no com- 

 pulsory labor sj^stem any more than there 

 is in the teaching of engineering or archte- 

 ologjr. The student can ill afford the 

 time while at college to perform mere 

 manual labor. He must give all his 

 strength to the acquirement of knowledge, 

 and even then he finds four years all too 

 short in which to grasp the essential princi- 

 ples of the complicated rural pursuits. 

 Teaching is done by class exercises and by 

 laboratory work, as it is in all other scien- 

 tific and technical subjects at the present 

 day. If the student hears a lecture upon 

 the philosophy of the rotation of crops he 

 also goes for a walk with the professor over 

 the fields of the University farm and of ad- 

 joining lands and there observes the good 

 and bad points of farm management. Or, 

 if he hears a lecture upon winter tomatoes 

 he also goes with the instructor, or alone, 

 from day to day, and studies the tomatoes 

 as they grow under glass. The sum of 

 education as it applies to rural affairs is 

 comprised in the two words, judgment and 

 management; and the student needs to 

 have his mind opened by thinking upon 

 economics, language, history and general 

 science quite as much as upon some of the 

 particular subjects with which he is to deal 

 in a more intimate way. The student 

 should be a citizen before he is a farmer. 



If the student once masters principles he 

 is able of his own resources to ajjply them. 

 Yet many mature students come to us — 

 some of them graduates — who have been 

 taught the applications, the methods of 

 doing farm work, but who are greatly ig- 

 norant of the fundamental principles upon 

 which these applications rest. From all 

 these remarks it is apparent that much of 



the teaching does not lead directly, of itself, 

 to better farm practice, but it aims to edu- 

 cate the student. Its effect upon the stu- 

 dent is certainly salutarj^. As soon as he 

 comes to learn that agricultural practice 

 rests upon certain great laws, the operation 

 and control of which are largely in his own 

 hands, he becomes enthusiastic and de- 

 velops a deep and abiding love for rural 

 life. This result is not obtained by the 

 mere training school. 



HORTICULTURE AS A SCIENCE. 



Speaking more specifically of horticulture, 

 it may be said that the subject has merit as 

 a science. A single illustration will suffice, 

 without touching upon all the immediate 

 science of cultivation and of vegetable 

 physiology. The one greatest conception 

 before the human mind at the present time 

 is evolution. Data are demanded from 

 every source. Upon the organic side, and 

 within the realm of readily observable phe- 

 nomena, the two greatest sources of facts in 

 support of the hypothesis of evolution are 

 paleontology and horticulture. My reader 

 will no doubt at once accuse me of un- 

 seemly assurance in daring to associate 

 horticulture with a science of such impor- 

 tance. Paleontology derives its chief in- 

 terest from the fact that it spreads the 

 broken pages of the old book of life before 

 our eyes. Horticulture shows the move- 

 ments in operation. Six thousand and 

 more species of plants are widely culti- 

 vated , and most of them are broken up into 

 many forms under the touch of the opera- 

 tor. Some species have produced thous- 

 ands of distinct forms. These forms are re- 

 corded, and of many of them the exact meth- 

 ods and reasons of the genesis are known. 

 A vast panorama of varieties, or 'incipient 

 species,' as Darwin called them, is passing- 

 daily before us. Men talk of the probable 

 influence of climate upon plants; the horti- 

 culturist can cite you definite cases by the 



